Label: Insideout Music
Release date: 20. 6. 2011
Production: Devin Townsend
Album length: 70.49 min
Genre: Progressive Metal
Rating: 9.5/10
Canadian multi-talented musician and producer Devin Townsend, who walks the thin line between sonic genius and sonic terrorist more often than not, carried on in 2011 with the success story he kicked off in 2009 with his solo project Devin Townsend Project. »Deconstruction«, a kind of cross-section of Devin’s more aggressive, experimental side, was one of two studio albums released on the same day (June 20, 2011), yet in style, mood and song structure they couldn’t be more different from each other. While »Ghost« (RockLine review) was a new-agey, spiritual, ambient album the Dalai Lama himself would approve of, the concept-driven »Deconstruction« — whose sonic nature would’ve been more to the taste of a Frank Zappa, were he still alive — is the more “traditional” Devin outing, packed with brutal, experimental, chaotic and avant-garde moments, with plenty of off-the-wall humor and social satire to go around. Devin’s past with extreme metal outfit Strapping Young Lad also bubbles up to the surface on »Deconstruction« more than once.
Besides two drummers, Devin’s fellow Canadian Ryan Van Poederooyen and Belgian Dirk Verbeuren (Megadeth, ex-Soilwork), »Deconstruction« featured a whole galaxy of guest vocalists. With the exception of Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth) and Floor Jansen (Nightwish, ex-After Forever), these are singers who mostly “operate” in the extreme metal field. As usual, the main vocalist was Devin himself, who never fails to impress with his incredible, totally unpredictable vocal chameleon act. Devin wrote and arranged all the orchestral arrangements on »Deconstruction« with the help of Pro Tools, which allowed the orchestration to be transcribed successfully. The orchestral arrangements were then performed by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.
As mentioned, »Deconstruction« has a concept that, in keeping with Devin’s bipolar nature, is bizarrely comic, though nowhere near as complex and ambitious as both parts of his popular sci-fi satire and space opera »Ziltoid the Omniscent«. This time it’s the story of an overly curious individual who wants to find out the “ultimate truth”. In the end, after a string of strange and funny adventures, he arrives in hell, where the devil offers him an answer to his burning question about “the essence of everything”. To his great outrage and disappointment, the devil presents him with a cheeseburger as the essence of life — which, being a vegetarian, is of no use to him whatsoever, so he’s left embittered and without any personal enlightenment. By his own words, despite the album’s chaotic nature, Devin wanted to leave a positive message in the end.
The opening track, »Praise the Lowered«, a relatively calm start to the album, is a wonderfully successful cross between art rock and prog metal, with ambient-leaning keyboards in the style of those on »Ghost« mostly up front, only with a higher dose of electronic samples. About halfway through, it flips into a “possessed” extreme metal section with Paul Kuhr (Novembers Doom) in the lead vocal role. At times this composition sounds like a stylistic bridge between the two albums released on the same day, and like the calm before the experimental, chaotic, avant-garde and balls-out cataclysm that follows in the rest of »Deconstruction«.
»Stand«, where the aggressively inclined Mikael Åkerfeldt joins Devin on lead vocals, has a mounting, gloomy intro that sets the stage for a brutal, complex, chaotic and cataclysmic follow-up. Along the way, Devin also “builds” his trademark apocalyptic vocal harmonies and walls of sound. After a brief “lull” comes a brutal-epic finale that, thanks to Mikael’s presence, is somewhat reminiscent of some of Opeth’s older work. The symphonic-metal-leaning »Juular« sounds at times like the soundtrack to a gothic horror flick. Here Ihsahn (Emperor) provides the extreme, black metal vocals, helping Devin create the atmosphere and vision of a gothic version of Alice and her trip into a creepy version of Wonderland.
»Planet of the Apes« features an almost ideal fusion of prog metal, extreme metal and avant-garde metal elements, successfully merging some seemingly incompatible sonic ingredients. Tommy Giles Rogers of Between the Buried and Me plays an important vocal role here, especially during the more brutal moments. Around the middle of the song, an ambient-rich, melodic progressive rock section with mighty vocal harmonies appears completely out of nowhere, but it doesn’t last long, as a brutal and chaotic vocal stew soon takes over. Despite all this chaos, accompanied by a “bonkers” guitar solo spree, Devin once again manages to pull off an epic finale.
No less epic, chaotic and brutal, »Sumeria« features two guest singers, Joe Duplantier (Gojira) and Paul Masvidal (Cynic, ex-Death), who complement Devin’s vocal chameleon act nicely. This apocalyptically minded track will appeal to fans of symphonic metal and extreme metal alike. The shift into a mournful, acoustic-leaning finale is just one of the many surprises »Deconstruction« never runs out of.
The post-apocalyptic adventure »The Mighty Masturbator«, at more than 16 minutes the longest composition on »Deconstrukction« and also the album’s peak, tells you with its very title that it’s an unpredictable mix of off-the-wall humor, chaos, aggression, madness, genius and epic grandeur. The gothic-tinged intro is in perfect harmony with the album’s cover art, while the unpredictable vocal harmonies are once again exceptional. This time Greg Puciato (ex-The Dillinger Escape Plan) assisted on lead vocals, and he meshed well with Devin’s always unpredictable singing feats. Certain instrumental sections of this super-complex composition are played in such a chaotic and lightning-fast manner that the label “masturbatory metal” would be more than fitting here. Of course, there’s no way to skip the comic ending, which sounds like the music behind the end credits of some “naive” film spectacle from the early sixties.
On »Pandemic«, which sounds like a chaotic close encounter between a progressive extreme metal band and Nightwish, Floor Jansen shines with her soprano, complementing Devin’s ever-shifting vocal performance amid the prevailing sonic cataclysm. The title track features a guitar solo gone completely off the rails — pure “masturbatory” shredding — courtesy of Fredrik Thordendal (Meshuggah), while Devin is joined on lead vocals by the now late Oderus Urungus (Gwar) with his rasping. Unexpected time changes are never in short supply. A humorous interlude arrives shortly after the midpoint with operatic vocal harmonies. »Deconstruction« closes with the cataclysmic »Poltergeist«, a symphonic/death metal brew that sounds so brutal and possessed that even the devil would run and hide in the deepest pit of hell while listening to it, forgetting all about his cheeseburger.
Despite its prevailing chaos, experimentation, crazy humor and rawness, with »Deconstruction« Devin managed to create a thoroughly listenable album that is undoubtedly one of the most unusual, offbeat, exciting and complex achievements of his turbulent and unpredictable musical career. Very few musicians are capable of such a feat, which perhaps says the most about his genius as a songwriter, arranger and producer, and about his boundless talent for creating sonically incredibly rich, complex and atmospherically intense music that always sweeps the listener off their feet from head to toe.
Author: Peter “Dr. ProgRock” Podbrežnik
We’re publishing this album review on Devin Townsend’s 49th birthday, and we wish him many more wonderfully crazy musical ideas and endless creative inspiration.
Tracklist:
1. Praise the Lowered (6:02)
2. Stand (9:36)
3. Juular (3:46)
4. Planet of the Apes (10:59)
5. Sumeria (6:37)
6. The Mighty Masturbator (16:28)
7. Pandemic (3:29)
8. Deconstruction (9:27)
9. Poltergeist (4:25)
Lineup:
Devin Townsend – vocals, guitar, bass guitar, keyboards
Ryan Van Poederooyen – drums on tracks 1, 2, 4, 6, and 10
Dirk Verbeuren – drums on tracks 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9
Guest musicians:
Fredrik Thordendal – guitar solo on track 8
Paul Kuhr – vocals on track 1
Mikael Åkerfeldt – vocals on track 2
Ihsahn – vocals on track 3
Tommy Giles Rogers – vocals on track 4
Joe Duplantier – vocals on track 5
Paul Masvidal – vocals on track 5
Greg Puciato – vocals on track 6
Floor Jansen – soprano vocals on track 7
Dave Brockie (Oderus Urungus) – vocals on track 8
Florian Magnus Maier – vocal undertones on tracks 2 and 6
Prague Philharmonic Orchestra
